In message , at 18:25:11 on Fri, 13 Apr
2012, Clive Page remarked:
Quote
The eight week period was felt sufficient for our needs whilst not
infringing on customers’ rights of privacy and complies with the Data
Protection Act 1998.

They seem to be in the process of reconsidering this, and extending it
to two years. One of the interesting things about DPA in circumstances
such as this is the time period that is deemed appropriate for keeping
information like this is normally 'three billing periods'. So if it was
for some kind of utility with a monthly billing period it would be three
months, and if billed quarterly it would be nine months.

This linkage to the billing period is a result of the way in which
people look at their bills and complain, coupled with an expectation
that you might be able to complain about things that happened in prior
billing cycles, but not indefinitely.

[The situation was altered for the telecoms industry, post 9/11, by the
introduction of laws mandating various "Data retention" periods, which
trumps DPA.]

For PAYG Oyster there isn't really an equivalent "billing period" but
one might invent a pseudo-billing-period of a week, and then allow
complaints up to three weeks (then maybe a week to resolve them), after
which point there's no DPA "necessity" for the data to be held any
longer. Except they keep it for eight weeks, not four.

Our Conditions of Carriage state that, any claims of this nature must
be contested within 14 days of the journey in order for a refund to be
considered. To download a copy of our Conditions of Carriage please
visit:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...age-january-20
12.pdf
/quote

Such a simple system - it needs 53 pages of T&C, and that doesn't
include any fares tables!!!

Anyway, at the bottom of page 48, it mentions complaining within 28
days. (The expression "14 days" does not appear in the document
anywhere).

Irrespective of your specific issues with the bus fare, I think it's
worth you complaining in writing that they have a serious staff training
issue, and should investigate to see if others have been mistakenly
fobbed off in the same way.

ps So it seems to me the eight weeks arises from those four weeks, plus
four more to carry out their investigation.
--
Roland Perry